


Take A Friend's Baby To Work Day

by Telaryn



Category: Leverage
Genre: Babysitting, Bombs, Cranky Nathan Ford, Gen, Hostage Situations, Nate Really Needs to Schedule Time for That Stroke, Rescue, no talking allowed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-08
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2019-03-02 08:08:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13314033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Telaryn/pseuds/Telaryn
Summary: Parker sits out part of a job in order to babysit Peggy's infant niece.  But, when the team is taken hostage by a radical terrorist group, all bets are off and little Darla gets more than she bargained for.





	Take A Friend's Baby To Work Day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ginipig](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ginipig/gifts).



> I'm really not sure who to blame on this one - you for specifically asking that I write 'five thieves and a baby' and listing a delightfully attractive 'twist fic' in your prompts - or me for deciding that two great tastes MUST taste great together, regardless whether or not they have the slightest thing to do with...you know what? Enjoy. *g* You earned it.
> 
> (And thank you for joining us once again.)

Mind racing, Nate reached behind the bar and snagged the bottle of Glen Livet. One of the two bartenders on duty opened his mouth as if to remind him this was supposed to be a cash bar, but his partner grabbed him before he could make a sound, indicating the monitors hung around the perimeter of the ballroom.

The same digital legend could be read on each one: You are being held by The People’s Front as a protest against continued American involvement in the Middle East. The ballroom is wired on three levels. The first will be triggered by cell signal, so no use of phones, tablets or other devices. The second by any sound above a whisper, so talking will be kept to a minimum. The third we leave for the more ambitious among you to figure out. Happy hunting!

 _Fucking idealistic radicals_ , Nate thought, pouring himself out a full glass of whisky without hesitation or shame. Eliot and Sophie had dispersed into the crowd as soon as the doors had locked and the monitors gone live, working with a few of the more likely looking guests to calm the crowd and collect and neutralize whatever cell phones and other computerized devices they could find.

Hardison was in the van, and Nate had to trust that the hacker’s natural curiosity meant he’d seen the monitors and knew what was going on. The com in his ear felt different, like the few times it had gone dead on him, but he knew he couldn’t risk saying anything to find out for certain.

Parker? Parker was _babysitting_ , and if he thought about that for too long, Nate knew he was going to have a stroke. “Peggy’s supposed to be watching her niece this week, but she got a call about a job, and you know she’s trying really hard to get her catering business going…”

Luckily for all of them, the amount of breaking and entering required on this portion of the job had been well within everyone else’s skill set, so Sophie had decided that taking on this responsibility would be good for Parker. “It’s the kind of thing good friends do for each other,” she’d said, echoing Parker’s enthusiasm, and Nate was still wondering if she’d stopped long enough to think about whether having Parker as its primary caregiver would be in any way good for the baby.

 _A baby’s not a pair of Prada shoes or a priceless jewel,_ he thought, tossing off the last of the whisky, and maybe he shouldn’t be thinking in those terms right now. _Parker (and Sophie) would take extremely good care of designer shoes or a priceless jewel._

Eliot and Sophie were heading back in his direction, being trailed by three men and two women he’d never seen before. One of them was carrying a bundled table cloth that proved to have all the confiscated electronics. She offered it to Nate, who nodded his thanks and reached across to deposit the bundle behind the bar. When he straightened up again, he motioned for the two still-terrified bartenders to join the guests in the middle of the room.

When he turned back to the small group that was being put at his disposal, Eliot passed him a notebook and pen that he’d taken off someone. In the hitter’s tight, precise handwriting Nate could see the words, “What are your orders, general?”

 _Everybody’s a comedian._  
************************************  
Little Darla proved to be an actual baby, and Parker was almost disappointed. “I gave her a bottle,” Peggy said, pulling out two more bottles and securing them in the refrigerator, “so she shouldn’t be hungry. Parker, don’t poke her!”

“I thought we could play together,” the thief pouted, but she did as Peggy asked. “I read everything I could find about entertaining babies!”

Admittedly the results of one Google search probably didn’t make her an expert. Peggy certainly didn’t seem impressed by her initiative, although she did say, “Well, if you keep trying to wake her up, you’re going to get more practice than you bargained for. First and most important rule about babies is that if you’re lucky enough to get them to sleep, for heaven’s sake leave them that way!”

More rules followed, which Parker had expected and tried to remember, but Peggy was in full-on ‘over-caffeinated yappy dog’ mode (the descriptor had been Eliot’s but even though she thought the comparison was perfect, everyone had made sure Parker understood it was also one of those things that needed to stay within the team). Fortunately for all three of them – especially Darla – everything Peggy babbled at Parker had also been copied onto two sides of a sheet of paper in Peggy’s neat handwriting.

“I should be back by 1:00am at the latest,” Peggy finished, leaning over to give her niece a gentle kiss on the forehead. “Parker, I can’t thank you enough for this.”

“It’s what good friends do for each other, right?” Parker asked, remembering what Sophie had said.

Apparently it was the right thing to say, because Peggy threw her arms around Parker and hugged her. Parker tried her best not to flinch at the unexpected contact, and if her own arms were a trifle late hugging Peggy back, her friend didn’t seem to notice. “You are the best friend I’ve ever had,” she confirmed. Before Parker could react to the statement, Peggy had let her go and was out the door. Her “I owe you…” drifted back almost as an after-thought.

As she secured the apartment, Parker decided that Peggy probably didn’t mean that she owed Parker in the way the thief understood, and resolved to check with Sophie before doing anything to collect. “Well,” she announced, turning back to face her still-sleeping guest, “if I’d known you were going to be boring sleepy baby I would have just taken you into the field with me.”

_”Woman, I swear…if you don’t start keeping your phone charged!”_

Parker was pretty sure Hardison was too busy babbling to have notice her yelp of surprise as his voice boomed out of a nearby set of computer speakers. What was impossible to ignore though, was the equally surprised shriek of indignation from the no-longer-sleeping baby. “Oh no, no, no, no,” Parker moaned, racing to Darla’s side. “Hardison, let me find my comm!”

“I wasn’t serious about you being boring, baby,” she whimpered, struggling with the straps in the carrier for a moment before getting them loose. “Sleeping babies are fun! I like sleeping babies!” Hoisting the crying infant in one arm, Parker fumbled in her pocket for the small plastic device.

 _”Mama, I’m sorry,”_ Hardison was saying as the comm settled into place in her ear. _”I’m really sorry, but we’ve got a problem and we need your help. Can you call Peggy?”_

Parker had found what the website she’d looked at called a ‘bouncy rhythm’, and little Darla was already responding. Her face was still an angry red color, but she seemed to be more focused on figuring out who Parker was and less on screaming herself hoarse. “I’ll work it out,” she told Hardison, a plan forming in her mind. “Tell me what’s happened.”  
*************************************  
The isolation was a form of torture all on its own. They had no way of telling what sort of negotiation might be going on outside the ballroom, if any. At any moment their captors could decide that the hostages had outlived their usefulness, and not only would they not be able to stop it, they would never see it coming.

Finishing off his third whisky, and trying to ignore the worried glances Eliot and Sophie seemed to be swapping, Nate mentally reviewed his available resources again. One of the women in the ‘army’ Eliot and Sophie had brought him turned out to be an electrician. Working together, she and Eliot had uncovered the first two bombs and what Eliot thought might be a pressure plate connected to the mysterious third line of explosives.

The immediate problem with that particular set of discoveries was that in order to disarm the most easily accessible of the bombs they had to be able to get past the second one. _Logically we have to assume somebody who goes to these lengths is going to be watching us to see what we do._

He’d ordered Eliot and the woman, whose name was Lynne, away from the explosives. Sophie and the other volunteers were still focused on the other guests and staff – working as silently and diligently as possible to keep them calm and distracted. He smiled slightly, recognizing a game of charades one small group had started off to the side of the main crowd.

Movement in his direction flashed at the edge of his vision, and Nate turned in time to see Eliot approach. Rather than waste time signaling, the hitter passed over another sheet of paper from the diary he’d lifted. _Found a roof hatch._

Nate raised his eyebrows. _Possibilities…_ Looking up at his hitter again, he nodded.

The hatch was in a broom closet on the northeast corner of the room. _High probability of it being unmonitored,_ he thought, studying the ceiling.

Storage shelves ran all the way to the ceiling. Eliot pressed on one, testing its strength. Before he looked up at Nate and shook his head, the mastermind had already dismissed the possibility of using them as a ladder. He gestured for Eliot to pass him the journal. _If we can’t use it to get out, maybe it’s the way for Hardison to get in to us?_

When he finished writing, he passed the book back to Eliot.

_1\. Get word to Hardison about the hatch.  
2\. Determine if it’s wired.  
3\. Get people out without convincing our fanatics outside to blow us up._

The hitter read the list then turned the book towards Nate again and tapped the first item. Raising his free hand, he flashed his fingers in sequence – three long, three short, then three long again.

 _Morse code._ It was the obvious means of communication with the outside world, and Nate had considered it, but they had a severely limited number of windows to work with, and no control over who on the outside could see their message.

Eliot wasn’t done, though. He held up two fingers, then pointed up to the roof hatch again. Nate considered the proposal. _Just transmit about the roof hatch._

It was an interesting thought. Hardison would be monitoring every bit of audio and video in the area that he could reach without putting them in danger. If law enforcement types in particular started talking about a series of coded flashes…

Focusing on his hitter, Nate nodded his agreement.  
*****************************************  
“Peggy is going to kill you when she finds out about this! Not to mention, Nate’s going to blow a gasket!”

On some level Parker understood why Hardison was so upset. He tended to get shouty when things were tense and he couldn’t work his way through the problem. It had taken her most of the car ride over to get Darla back to sleep though, and the last thing they needed with the team in danger of getting blown up was a crying baby on their hands!

“And if you’re not going to let me take the baby, you should at least be wearing a safety harness!”

Darla was securely strapped to Parker’s front by this time, her head pillowed on the thief’s chest as she slept. “We don’t have time to argue about this,” Parker reminded Hardison. “She’s sleeping, and Peggy said when she sleeps, _do not wake her up!_ ” They reached the roof hatch, and Hardison set down the extension ladder he’d found. “Besides – you said they were only twelve-foot ceilings in there. A full harness would be overkill.”

The hacker was crouched beside the hatch now, confirming what his machines had told him earlier – the people that had wired the entire ballroom with nobody finding out about it had overlooked this one potential point of entry. “Still looks clean. You want to give me a hand with this?”

The hatch was heavy, but well maintained. It opened smoothly, and when they looked into the hole, Parker grinned to see Nate smiling up at them. _Can’t talk,_ she reminded herself, as the mastermind put a cautionary finger to his lips.

“He’s going to kill you,” Hardison whispered, as Parker clambered over the side and prepared to drop. Almost as if she was following the conversation, Darla shifted in her carrier, making a small noise. Parker froze, holding up a hand to quiet Hardison, then relaxed as the baby settled back to sleep.

“Don’t forget to tie the ladder off with the knots I showed you,” she reminded him. “We can’t afford to have it moving around once people start climbing out.”

And then, she dropped.

Nate was there to steady her as she landed; the look on his face as he registered Darla’s presence was less anger and more exhausted resignation. Eliot’s expression as he came up behind the mastermind? That was anger, with a side of heavy disbelief.

There was no time for an argument though, even a mostly silent one, as Hardison was already lowering the ladder down to them.  
*******************************************  
 _Of course she brought the damn baby! Of course!_ Nate wondered why Eliot was wasting his energy being surprised; the way the hitter was glaring at Parker it was obvious only the threat of imminent death by explosion was keeping him from expressing his views on what she had done.

 _First things first._ Nate thought for half a second about insisting that Parker hand the baby over to him, but the little girl was sleeping soundly for now. Motioning for Eliot and Parker to stay where they were and stay quiet, he headed up the ladder.

“Nate, I…” Hardison began, as soon as he was in earshot, but Nate cut him off with a quick shake of the head.

“Later,” he said, as they moved away from the hatch opening. “Oh believe me, later. Do we have a way to get these people off the roof?” Visions of the structure collapsing underneath them had been hitting him with increasing frequency since the moment Eliot had shown him the roof hatch.

“Parker and I came up a set of stairs over there,” Hardison said, pointing to an open door on the south side of the roof. Mentally sketching in what he knew of the building layout, Nate determined that they were the service stairs. Eliot and Sophie had found the access to them from the ballroom level in their initial sweep, but to all indications that door was armed as well.

“Anything else?” he asked, scanning the landscape for himself. The hotel they were in was the tallest building on the block, but all the buildings were set close together. Walking quickly towards the northern edge of the roof, Nate peered over the parapet. “Six foot drop to the roof next door.”

Hardison came up beside him. “We should probably have somebody down there to catch.”

Nate nodded. “All right. Stay up here. When the hostages start coming out, direct them this way. We’ll get them down to the street through this building as quickly as possible.”

He wasted no time getting back down the ladder. The fact that Parker’s baby was awake barely registered as he stepped away from the ladder – because of course she was – but Eliot had convinced the thief to hand her over and the little girl seemed content to be bounced gently by the hitter for now.

Pointing at Eliot, Nate then pointed up the ladder. Parker moved forward automatically, as if she intended to take the baby back, but Nate physically pulled her back with him out of the closet, shaking his head at her when she glared at him.

 _No more than five or six at a time,_ he thought, gesturing for Parker to stay where she was. They couldn’t risk everybody charging for the only avenue of escape at once – not only was that a recipe for internal disaster, it would almost guarantee that their captors would blow one or all of the bombs.

Locating Sophie, Nate managed to convey the essence of the plan to her. Between them they worked out a rough system for getting the trapped party goers to freedom.

 _Here goes nothing._  
********************************************  
“I didn’t do that bad!”

Parker had been relieved when Nate told them to ‘just go home’, once the hostages were rescued and local first responders dealt with, although she didn’t miss the way he pinched the bridge of his nose, or the death grip Sophie seemed to have on his free arm.

By then Darla was asleep on Eliot’s shoulder though, and instead of immediately handing her over, the hitter had invited himself up to her and Hardison’s apartment.

“She really didn’t,” Hardison allowed, as Eliot changed the baby’s diaper and settled her back into her carrier without prompting anything more than a small twitch and sigh from the sleeping child. Parker smiled gratefully at the hacker, worried that Eliot was staying around to lecture her, and then tell Peggy she had been a bad friend who couldn’t be trusted with the baby anymore.

“Do either of you have any idea how ‘not the point’ that is?” Eliot asked, leading them both to the other side of the room. “There were bombs in play, Parker. Bombs. Did you even stop to think what would have happened to that child if something had gone wrong? Or to the rest of us?”

Parker remembered Hardison telling her that one of the bombs was noise sensitive. She’d been confident in her ability to keep Darla quiet, but now that Eliot was making her think about it, her insides were starting to twist up. “Hey man,” Hardison said, sensing her rising distress, “we’re all beat, and there’s still at least an hour before Peggy gets here. Can we do this later?”

Eliot bowed his head for a moment, and when he looked at them again, his expression was noticeably calmer. “You didn’t do bad at all for your first time,” he allowed. “And, if being able to take care of babies and children is something you want to learn how to do, I think that’s a good idea. It’s just…no bombs next time, okay?”

Realizing that he wasn’t mad at her – that he’d just been scared like the rest of them – made Parker feel better about the evening. “No bombs,” she agreed, brightening. “I think she liked that jump we made anyway, so maybe we start with climbing and rappelling and work on bombs when she’s a little older.”


End file.
